Article March 9, 1968 Issue

A Letter to Someone in Love

[For young adults]

GERTRUDE BAYLESS

Dear ..............: The other day you told me how confused you had become about being in love. I wonder whether you realize fully enough that God creates all the real love there is. He is Love, the all-loving. Not only does God love all, but He does all the true loving.

Spiritual man is the expression of God's love. The human being in love, consistently identifying God as the only source of love and himself as man, the expression of Love, expands his capacity to love and be loved. A new surge of freedom and honesty releases the love of anyone who can feel spiritually God's dear love for himself and others. He can know that his unselfish love for another is his spiritual reflection of God's love. I thought you might find this point useful—that all true love originates in God. Understanding this helps you test the genuineness of love.

On the other hand, love originating in a material sense of personality can be detected as bogus even when well acted. Personal love pursues and possesses its object, likes to shape the response it elicits, likes to structure its interchanges to suit its own wants. Love originating in mortal mind can be turned off and on by others and by the person himself. It is even used almost unconsciously for favors and influence.

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